Streatham - Contemporary Streatham

Contemporary Streatham

In September 2002, Streatham High Road was voted the "Worst Street in Britain" in a poll organised by the BBC Today programme and CABE. This largely reflected the dominance of through traffic along High Road.

Plans for investment and regeneration had begun before the poll, with local amenity group the Streatham Society leading a successful partnership bid for funding from central government for environmental improvements. Work started in winter 2003-04 with the refurbishment of Streatham Green and repaving and relighting of the High Road between St Leonard's Church and the Odeon Cinema. In 2005 Streatham Green won the Metropolitan Public Gardens Association 'London Spade' award for best public open space scheme in the capital.

The poll was a catalyst for Lambeth London Borough Council and Transport for London's Street Management to co-operate on a joint funding arrangement for further streetscape improvements, which benefited The Dip between St Leonard's and Streatham station and the stretch north of the Odeon as far as Woodbourne Avenue. However, further spending has currently been halted because of TfL's budgetary shortfall.

Streatham Festival was established in 2002. It has grown to a festival with over 50 events held in an array of locations, from bars to churches and parks to youth centres, attracting over 3,000 people.

After several years of delay and controversy over phasing, construction started in the autumn of 2011 on the Streatham Hub - a major redevelopment next to Streatham railway station. The project is a joint development by Lambeth Council and Tesco.

The Streatham Hub project involves the demolition of Streatham Ice Arena, Streatham Leisure Centre and the former Streatham Bus Garage, and their replacement with a new leisure centre and a Tesco store with 250 flats above it. The leisure centre will be owned by Lambeth and will have an ice rink on the upper floors with a sports hall, gym and swimming pool on the levels below. Streatham Leisure Centre had been closed since November 2009 due to health and safety concerns when part of the pool hall ceiling collapsed. Streatham Ice Arena closed on 18 December 2011, having celebrated eighty years of operation in February 2011. The new ice rink and leisure centre are scheduled to open in late 2013. During the closure period, a temporary ice rink is operating at Popes Road in Brixton.

Despite being a building of some architectural merit, Streatham Swimming Baths was deemed unsafe and demolished as part of the Streatham Hub regeneration project. Until the completion of the new development, the closest swimming pool is Tooting Lido.